NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF THERMALLY LOADED AIRCRAFT ENGINE TURBINE BLADE COVERED WITH THERMAL BARRIER COATING - TBC

Abstract

The objective of this thesis is to present the impact of the turbine blade cooling on blade material temperature as well as to assess advantages and disadvantages of applied cooling method (TBC coating combined with internal cooling). To calculate the conjugated heat transfer analysis generating 3d model and mesh of the blade and its cooling was required. Model mesh was covered with boundary layer in order to properly simulate conditions near the blade walls and obtain accurate results. Calculated blade was put in the canal simulating hot combustion gasses flow. Geometry of model described above was created using Unigraphics NX5 program based on drawings obtained from available literature, and data acquired from the Internet. The discretization was done in commercial pre-processor GAMBIT®. Conjugated heat transfer analysis was conducted in program FLUENT® for two different cases, where the TBC material properties were changed. The goal of this thesis was to obtain temperature fields and distribution in the turbine blade airfoil and to evaluate if applied cooling is sufficient to cool down this thermally loaded part of the engine. Calculated results show that proposed blade heat protection with TBC and internal cooling canal is insufficient during steady state condition, especially on the blade leading and trailing edge. In these two locations, the TBC coating is overheated, and the high temperature level of blade material is unacceptable for materials used in jet engine turbine industry.